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IndustryUpdate

Electronic Transactions Association. In addition, she electronic payment topics, including ACH, check, cyber-
is an 11-year board member and past president of the security, P2P payments and remote deposit capture.
Women's Network in Electronic Transactions. Former
BillingTree CEO Edgars (Edz) Sturans will remain as a CompliancePoint hires Fernando Perez
BillingTree Board member.
Fernando Perez joined information security and risk
VSoft taps Kevin Olsen management services provider CompliancePoint as man-
ager of PCI services. Perez will work to enhance this
VSoft Corp., a provider of information and technology established practice area for CompliancePoint and assist
solutions for financial institutions, added Kevin Olsen as clients' efforts to prepare, remediate and certify against
its senior vice president of payments solutions. For almost the PCI Data Security Standard, the company stated.
two decades, Olsen has been managing development and Directly prior, Perez was director of security architec-
delivery of education services, including in-person class- ture at UnitedHealth Group. Previously, Perez worked
es, web conferences and webcasts, VSoft noted, adding he in information security-specific consultative positions
developed programs, presentations and articles designed to advise clients on standards such as PCI, HIPAA and
to orient and educate financial professionals on multiple ISO-27002.

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The 2018 Payments Fostering a diversity of innovation

Can you train someone to be innovative? Can you teach
Innovations Summit people to think differently than the rest of their group?
And if so, will management allow them to implement their
solutions? Will management allow innovators enough li-
By Brandes Elitch cense and time to work their ideas through to a pilot proj-
CrossCheck Inc. ect that has a chance of success? In most cases, probably
not. After all, there is work to do – now. But in some cases,
n November 2018, I attended the Payments with forward thinking management, bright people with
Innovation Summit in San Francisco. I've been think- different skill sets, who work well together as a group and
ing about the subject of innovation a lot recently. An have an intuitive sense of what customers, will want in five
I October article in Time magazine titled "50 Genius years, it can happen.
Companies" stated, "At the heart of every great business
is a creative solution to a problem, and these solutions Retail Systems Research identified five types of innova-
sometimes change the world." Time evaluated candidates tion: customer-driven, technology-driven, insight-driven,
on "originality, influence, success and ambition." Inspired process-driven, and influencer-driven. RSR found that
by them, I asked myself, "Why can't we do something like large retailers are expected to deliver top and bottom lines,
this?" which leaves little funding for innovation. Continuous pro-
motional activity has cut into the discretionary budget for
Then I wondered if you can teach people to be innovative, innovation. Customer expectations continue to rise, but re-
and whether innovators share a common denominator tailers need operational efficiencies to fund customer ini-
or just a lucky path. No generally accepted principles or tiatives and innovation. Most mature companies have this
standards exist for innovation. After all, most people are not problem.
getting paid for innovative work; they are doing necessary
work. In most companies, an entrenched bureaucracy November's symposium, chaired by Michelle Vautier, took
has a vested interest in the status quo. Most people are on this subject with vigor. Topics included realizing the full
uncomfortable with change. Hardly anyone is engaged in potential of cloud-based mobile payments and Internet of
regular, repeated innovation behavior; they have jobs to do Things (IoT); agile development methodologies and APIs; AI
with associated expectations to meet. and machine learning; how fintech will impact the future
of commerce and payment options; delivering a personal
As writer Jeffrey Phillips put it, "You don't educate and seamless payments process to consumers; global
someone in 'innovation'; you educate them in a set of tools, business payment trends; innovations in global operating
expectations, perceptions, and beliefs. The combination capital liquidity; and risk and mitigation solutions to
of these factors enables innovation to occur." He added payments security. Funding for fintech projects centers on
that these tools include "trend identification and analysis, five areas: lending, insurtech, payments, blockchain, and
scenario planning, customer insight generation, idea B2B fintech. Note that eight of the largest tech companies
generation, prototyping, and more." This sounds daunting. are in payments (Apple, Google, Microsoft, Apple, Tencent,
Facebook, Alibaba, and Samsung). Clearly, the focus has
been on payments.
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